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yay, a strong, diverse female character who easily beats up on opponents five times her size.

But THIS time her dialogue is like, that of a transplanted 21st century American teen girl!  Also, she has a really really cute armadilllo pet/helper!!11! 

So original.

At least the animated movies tend to be more watchable and somewhat creative than the live action movies these days, so maybe it will be fine, but basically it looks like another attempt to combine woke sensibilities with pandering to the CCP.

Of course, middle aged european dude not being the target audience here anyway, so whatever.

--

Soren

 

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8 hours ago, Stargrunt6 said:

No, but she does pander enough to the PRC market.

I don't think Vietnamese/Filipino/etc influences are catered much towards the PRC as such. More like generic Asian, surely nothing wrong with that. Live-action Mulan where she was made into 'cool martial arts kid' (which the original Mulan wasn't) is another thing altogether.

Opening scene is clearly a training set-up from her childhood, probably made by her father or teacher. She looks more or less adult in later scene (also her pet has grown to like 50 times larger).

I agree that the plot outline at this point seems quite cookie-cutter, but how the movie works rests on the characterizations and we're not any wiser at this point. Any way, I'm a middle-aged European dude and I'm very much in the target audience! B)

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1 hour ago, DB said:

But "Generic Asian" fails the woke criterion.

It is reinforcing the "they all look alike" stereotype.

It's Disney's version of the Normandy landing, spew out ethnic characters with Murrican traits to win them Commies over.

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2 hours ago, DB said:

But "Generic Asian" fails the woke criterion.

It is reinforcing the "they all look alike" stereotype.

Well, there's tons of fantasy settings with 'generic European' look (Westeros, for starters), doesn't look like anyone sees it as a problem.

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3 hours ago, Yama said:

Well, there's tons of fantasy settings with 'generic European' look (Westeros, for starters), doesn't look like anyone sees it as a problem.

Westeros isn't as generically European as you think.  It's English.  Were the characters and setting more French or Italian, it might not be as popular in the Anglosphere.  If Disney is trying to pander to China by showing generic SE Asians, they might be, disappointed.

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13 hours ago, Yama said:

I don't think Vietnamese/Filipino/etc influences are catered much towards the PRC as such. More like generic Asian, surely nothing wrong with that. Live-action Mulan where she was made into 'cool martial arts kid' (which the original Mulan wasn't) is another thing altogether.

Opening scene is clearly a training set-up from her childhood, probably made by her father or teacher. She looks more or less adult in later scene (also her pet has grown to like 50 times larger).

A far cry from Mulan 2020, where she is quite the Mary Sue.

I agree that the plot outline at this point seems quite cookie-cutter, but how the movie works rests on the characterizations and we're not any wiser at this point. Any way, I'm a middle-aged European dude and I'm very much in the target audience! B)

I am glad to see Kelly Marie Tran get work, especially leading a feature.   What the SW fandumb allegedly did to her was terrible. I for one believe it happened, SW fans bullied a young Jake Lloyd. 

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6 hours ago, R011 said:

Westeros isn't as generically European as you think.  It's English.  Were the characters and setting more French or Italian, it might not be as popular in the Anglosphere.  If Disney is trying to pander to China by showing generic SE Asians, they might be, disappointed.

Yes true, Andals are essentially English, though other ethnicities are based on different Europeans (Ironborn are Scandinavian, Dornese something Mediterranean etc).

Any way, the above was sort of my point, I don't think Raya is meant to pander to Chinese audiences any more than say, Moana. If they wanted to do that, they would have just picked up another story from Chinese legends and visually the setting doesn't look very Chinese.

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1 hour ago, Stargrunt6 said:

I am glad to see Kelly Marie Tran get work, especially leading a feature.   What the SW fandumb allegedly did to her was terrible. I for one believe it happened, SW fans bullied a young Jake Lloyd. 

Yea it's really sad what happened to Lloyd particularly. Apparently he nowadays thinks Star Wars ruined his life :( It was a mistake from Lucas to write Anakin as a preteen kid for the Phantom Menace, in more than one way.

On the subject of Disney princesses: Marge Champion (née Belcher) "the real Snow White" passed away couple of days ago at the age of 101. She was picked at age of 14 from the lineup of ~300 girls to work as live reference model for characters of Snow White & Seven Dwarves, mostly Snow White herself.

48a52006356af78b2854fe57aed1395a.png

She was the last surviving person to have worked on the grand momma of all Disney animated feature movies. For many years Disney played down her involvement, along with other live models, as Rotoscope was seen borderline cheating. Even she herself realized only many years later exactly how closely she had been traced, for example Snow White's dance scene is almost all Marge. Looking at the surviving footage of the Snow White sessions it's easy to see why she was picked, she is really very lovely and expressive Snow White.

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1 hour ago, Yama said:

Yes true, Andals are essentially English, though other ethnicities are based on different Europeans (Ironborn are Scandinavian, Dornese something Mediterranean etc).

Any way, the above was sort of my point, I don't think Raya is meant to pander to Chinese audiences any more than say, Moana. If they wanted to do that, they would have just picked up another story from Chinese legends and visually the setting doesn't look very Chinese.

Perhaps the people writing, directing, and animating know the difference between Vietnamese and Chinese, but I would not be in the least surprised to find the execs do not.

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21 hours ago, Yama said:

On the subject of Disney princesses: Marge Champion (née Belcher) "the real Snow White" passed away couple of days ago at the age of 101. She was picked at age of 14 from the lineup of ~300 girls to work as live reference model for characters of Snow White & Seven Dwarves, mostly Snow White herself.

48a52006356af78b2854fe57aed1395a.png

She was the last surviving person to have worked on the grand momma of all Disney animated feature movies. For many years Disney played down her involvement, along with other live models, as Rotoscope was seen borderline cheating. Even she herself realized only many years later exactly how closely she had been traced, for example Snow White's dance scene is almost all Marge. Looking at the surviving footage of the Snow White sessions it's easy to see why she was picked, she is really very lovely and expressive Snow White.

Agreed.  And she went on to have a stellar career with her husband Gower as a dancer and Emmy winning choreographer. I have always loved the Champions' dancing and singing in the 1951 version of Show Boat. The lady could sing, dance and act.

RIP

 

--

Soren

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6 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Q and A with the cast of Dune which I don't think has been posted yet.

With all due respect to star wars, this one in really looking forward to.

Like the cast.  A lot of MCU vets and other well known faces.  Hate Colbert  so not watching the video.  Didn't care that much for the books.

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Ive not read the rest of the series, to be honest I like leaving it whilst he is winning, though I gather that is missing much of the point of the arc of the novels. It was an excellent work, im ashamed I left it so long before reading it.

I actually enjoyed the original film. It was flawed, I could see that even before reading it. But it was beautiful to watch, and some of the performances were actually very good. Im willing to forgive it the Mentat bushy eyebrows....

 

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My wife and I keep a list of "surprisingly good" movies.  I already posted most of it, but it has some new additions, and I don't remember which ones already got posted, so 'scuze if there's a repeat or two:

Hellmington -- 2/5 stars, about 25% horror, 75% whodunnit.

I See You -- 4/5 stars, Ellen Hunt, the twists keep surprising .. poltergeist? Well, no, but maybe yes?

Almost Mercy -- 3/5 stars, childhood is hell.  "Wristcutters"-style dark comedy, does blood well.

The Voices -- 1/5 stars, two schizophrenics sharing a cabin in the woods with a closet full of guns.  What could possibly go wrong?

Ashes -- 3/5 stars, OMG what is wrong with these people? Never quite gels into a horror movie, more like a dark comedy with a tragedy tacked onto the end.  It's a riot.


Note that the "stars" rankings are entirely my own assessment, and are only meaningful relative to each other.  These are all good movies, IMO, and "1/5 stars" just means that it's a good movie that isn't quite as good as the "2/5 stars" movie.

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